Chapter 40: Getting Sick After Eating a Mad Dog

The heart, liver, and lungs of a young roe deer are incredibly tender and cook very quickly.

Wang An snapped four straight branches and handed two to his uncle as makeshift chopsticks!

Truth be told, eating freshly cooked heart, liver, and lungs in these desolate mountains brought a truly unique flavor!

It was spicy, warm, and incredibly satisfying!

The only problem was when it came to drinking the soup!

There were no bowls!!

Feng Chengmin, unhurried, picked up his skinning knife and walked toward a linden tree.

He made a horizontal cut around the trunk, moved the knife up, and made another horizontal cut.

He then made a vertical cut between the two circles, pried the tip up, and with a pull of his hands, a piece of linden bark came away.

He moved to another linden tree and repeated the process, obtaining another piece of bark.

Wang An knew that stripping linden bark this way wouldn't kill the tree!

Once spring arrived, new bark would continue to grow; this was one of the linden tree's remarkable traits!

Linden bark is very resilient, much like thick kraft paper.

Using the skinning knife, he cut the bark into as many squares as possible.

He folded the four sides, folded the overlapping corners vertically, and then used the tip of the knife to poke a hole through the excess material!

He inserted thin twigs to secure it.

Just like that, a small, flat-bottomed, square bark bowl was complete!

Wang An's jaw nearly dropped!

You could actually play it like this?! He had learned another trick!

Well, using this as a bowl actually worked quite well!

It didn't leak—not a single drop!

Regardless, that spicy soup was truly delicious!!

Whether or not there were seasonings didn't make much of a difference.

Once the two had eaten their fill, Wang An used snow to thoroughly scrub the pot clean.

He smothered the fire with snow, and the two climbed onto the sled to continue wandering through the deep mountains!

However, it wasn't a casual stroll like Wang An used to do; Wang An was searching for prey tracks.

Tracking is simply a matter of practice!

With enough observation and someone to teach you, any normal person could learn it quickly!

Less than an hour later, both Wang An and Feng Chengmin instinctively wanted to call the big horse to a halt.

"What is it? You found something too?" Feng Chengmin asked Wang An with a chuckle.

"Yeah, looking at these hoof prints, it should be one large and two small—three wild boars!" Wang An replied with a smile.

"Haha, not bad, indeed. Let's see if the big one is a boar or a sow," Feng Chengmin said.

"Can you even tell the gender from hoof prints?" Wang An asked in confusion.

"Of course you can! You can tell even with animals that have split hooves like these!" Feng Chengmin said.

"Really?" Wang An studied them for a long time, but they all looked the same to him.

Feng Chengmin smiled. "A female; the hind hoof prints are separated."

Wang An noticed that the large hoof prints were indeed separated.

He asked doubtfully, "Why is that?"

Feng Chengmin explained, "Because she's carrying piglets, her belly is heavy. Her hind legs have to work harder, so the hooves press apart!"

Wang An nodded, half-understanding. Feng Chengmin's explanation for why the hooves separated might not be quite right, but it was true that a sow's hoof prints were separated!

The two followed the tracks on their sled.

Wild boar tracks are much easier to identify than those of a roe deer!

Because roe deer are lighter, their prints are shallower.

But a sow carrying piglets would weigh well over 200 pounds!

The tracks were very easy to recognize; they just had to follow the trail.

Since it wasn't deep winter yet, the wild boars hadn't lost much of their fat.

A sow's normal weight would be over 250 pounds; by spring, their fat would be mostly gone, leaving them at around 200 pounds.

Pigs are much faster than humans, but they can't outrun most animals.

As long as the mountain paths weren't too difficult or the trees too dense, pulling a sled to chase a pig was easy.

Since they were heading into the wind, they didn't need to take a detour.

Sitting on the sled, they saw the three wild boars from a distance, seemingly rooting for hazelnuts under a hazelnut tree.

The two tied up the big horse and approached slowly.

Feng Chengmin had warned that if a wild boar is startled, it will run incessantly. Their endurance is incredible; they will keep running until they are famished and completely exhausted.

Therefore, to avoid a life-threatening chase, they had to approach quietly.

Once close, they had to aim for a killing blow. If they only wounded the boar, it would either attack them or keep running—running until it felt safe!

Whether it lived or died depended on the severity of the wound.

If the wound was too heavy, it would die after lying down for a while; if it wasn't heavy enough, it would become a "gun-dodger," making it extremely difficult to hunt that pig again!

A wild boar's sense of smell is far superior to that of a hunting dog.

It would be hard to even catch a glimpse of it again, let alone shoot it!

Wang An was quite shocked after hearing this! These wild boars were too unpredictable!

However, Wang An believed him completely. As an experienced hunter, Feng Chengmin knew far too much!

One could say that Feng Chengmin understood the habits of most of the animals in these mountains!

When they were about 100 meters from the boars, both men raised their guns to their faces, just as they would when hunting roe deer.

Worried about Wang An's marksmanship, Feng Chengmin took the sow, while Wang An was tasked with the two piglets weighing about 130-140 pounds.

Wang An could hit either one, and they would deal with the third depending on the situation.

But accidents always come when you least expect them.

Before Feng Chengmin could even finish counting, he saw the sow lift her head and twitch her nose.

Without even a moment's hesitation, she bolted!

Her instantaneous acceleration was incredibly fast; the two piglets hadn't even realized what was happening!

Then came three shots: "Bang! Bang! Bang!"

One of the piglets fell instantly, and the other collapsed after running a few steps.

Only the sow escaped.

With a "Bang," another shot rang out, followed by another "Bang!"

About 140-150 meters away, the large sow was still crawling forward, dragging her two hind legs.

Words could not keep up with the speed of events!

"Good lad! Your marksmanship is divine! Hahaha!" Feng Chengmin shouted excitedly, laughing.

About 100 meters is the optimal distance for shooting.

If too close, the mountain animals smell the distinct scent of humans and the gunpowder from the gun and run immediately.

If too far, the difficulty of hitting the target increases several times over, and the gun becomes less accurate, often resulting in only wounding the animal.

One must realize that the vitality of mountain animals is incredibly tenacious; once they run, you can't catch them!

In this situation, the sow had smelled them and suddenly bolted. Feng Chengmin, aiming for the sow, had missed her head.

He had only wounded her, which didn't stop her from continuing her frantic run.

However, Wang An's two shots had killed both piglets.

The fourth shot was fired by Feng Chengmin; once the boar runs, you only see its rear and hind legs.

Feng Chengmin could only aim for the legs. He hit her, but since she only had one leg wounded, she could still run.

So the fifth shot was fired by Wang An, hitting the other hind leg.

With both hind legs disabled, the sow could only crawl forward using her front legs to stay alive.

But no matter how much she crawled, how fast could she be?

This kind of coordinated shooting—disabling a fleeing boar so it can't run away—provided a sense of success even more exhilarating than a solo sniper shot!

Thus, Feng Chengmin was extremely agitated and excited, as if he had eaten something to drive him wild!

After shouting, Feng Chengmin let out a "whoosh" and went charging toward the sow with a loud howl!

He moved so fast! He truly seemed to have eaten something to drive him wild!

Even Wang An, a 1.8-meter-tall 19-year-old young man, couldn't catch up to him!